In fact, both of the playing off each other was the best part of the movie.

The film centers around Tina Fey’s character, Kate, who has a “T-shaped” uterus and cannot get pregnant. She’s tried everything. And being a single women with a career, adoption was taking too long. So she decided to go the route of surrogacy to become a mother for the first time.

Sigourney Weaver helms the institute that provides the surrogate mothers, and soon Kate is paired up with Angie (Poehler).

The rest of the movie is basically the two of them together, as a sort of “odd couple” pairing that we’ve seen countless times.

In fact, there was really nothing original about Baby Mama at all. It was all too predictable, as my wife leaned over and told me how it would end about 30 minutes into the film.

Sure, there were some funny parts, but they just didn’t seem to flow as well as they could have. The most unique and laugh-out-loud scenes involved Steve Martin as Barry, the owner of a health food chain where Kate works.

I love Tina and Amy, and if it wasn’t for them, I’d have probably laughed even less. It wasn’t horrible, It just lacked the extra uniqueness I was hoping to see. Baby Mama was just your average, run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. I was hoping for a bit more from Fey, although blame for some lackluster performances could be placed on the first time director, Michael McCuller.

Mike’s rating: 5.5 out of 10

Some shows aren’t even going to come back for awhile, but there were moments or characters that SHOULD have been on television had the strike never happened. Heck, I even miss things that haven’t happened yet but are future “misses.”

The crazy thing when I tried to think back on this subject was actually discovering I didn’t miss as many things as I thought I would have. Sure, I could have probably done an entire list of just things from The Office, but that’s not really fair.

Of course, it’s my own blog, I can make up any rules I want. But I’m not really like that. So without further ado, here is my list of 8 things I missed during the Writer’s Strike.

1. Jim playing pranks on Dwight

I think this is one we all likely share. At least, if you are a fan of The Office. From dressing up like Dwight Schrute to acting like a vampire, Jim Halpert has never let us down when it comes to pranks. And I really can’t wait to see what they have in store for us when The Office returns.

2. Jack Bauer kicking terrorism’s ass

As much as last season sort of was a “groan” for me, I always get excited about 24 at the beginning. And no matter how dull the series may get, Jack Bauer/Kiefer Sutherland will never lose his coolness.

3. Liz Lemon

I just really love Tina Fey and 30 Rock, but mostly Fey’s character of Liz Lemon. She’s so unsure of herself, so funny, so much of a homebody that it’s hilarious. I’ve missed her interactions with Alec Baldwin.

4. Seeing Heroes get better

The second season of Heroes started off pretty bad and wandered here and there without rhyme nor reason. But the creators knew it and promised things would change. We saw a possible start to it, but then the strike happened and we lost our chance to see what they were going to do.

5. J.D. and Turk

Probably the two of the greatest “best friends” ever on television (at least until someone points out a better example), I miss J.D. and Turk on Scrubs. If you’ve never seen their musical duet called “It’s guy love…between two guys“, then you really haven’t lived. Click on that link to reborn.

6. Charlie Crews

I was one of those people who really enjoyed the new NBC series, Life this season and it was mainly for the lead character of Charlie Crews. He’s unique in that he was framed for murder, stuck in prison for a long time, became a student of Zen and then was released with a secret mission to find out who screwed him over. His style of being calm and introspective, yet a butt-kicking, intelligent detective is pretty brilliant.

7. Weekend Update and SNL Digital Shorts

Yes, it was back last week, but it just reminded me how much I missed Amy Poehler and Seth Myers doing the Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live, along with Andy Samberg and his cohorts doing hilarious Digital Shorts.

8. A Full Season of Lost

Perhaps the biggest thing we’ll end up missing because of the strike is the loss of three episodes of Lost this season. We know now that they will film five more before the season ends, meaning we’ll only get 13 total out of the promised 16. While I think they will be jammed packed and awesome, I feel like we’re going to miss out on a narrative that was planned out well before the strike.

What about you guys? Did you miss anything during the strike? Did you even notice it happened?

Tina Fey was the host and Carrie Underwood the musical guest. Fey of course is my favorite and it was fantastic to see her in the host role.

Her opening monologue was interrupted by a familiar SNL face: Steve Martin. You can watch it below:

[youtube CBIO4mw9KLY]

The opening itself was pretty hilarious, with Fred Armisen playing Barack Obama, which was a big mystery leading up to the show. No one knew who was going to get the job of playing Obama and they kept it under wraps until showtime. I thought Armisen did pretty good.

The skit was a great rip on CNN and the supposed bias towards Obama and you just have to love Amy Poehler and Kristin Wiig.

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There was also a surprise guest on Weekend Update: Mike Huckabee. He was interviewed by Seth Myers and the topic was the mathematical elimination of his chances in the Republican Primaries. Great stuff!

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Tina Fey also hopped on Weekend Update to give her input on Women’s News, and here is a clip of what she has to say about Hillary Clinton and women voters.

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Another pretty funny skit was a mocking of There Will Be Blood with a SUPERB impression of Daniel Day Lewis. The skit is about Drinking Milkshakes, which was a line from the film that has sort of caught fire on the web. Basically, he tells someone that he Drinks His Milkshake, sort of meaning he OWNS him. The skit is pretty good and the impression of Lewis is fantastic.

[youtube v2hCdM2d6e0]

And here is a new SNL commercial, this time about women and “periods”…oh my gosh.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdExnHM33kQ]

There was a ton of great stuff, but those are the highlights. Next week it’s Ellen Page hosting and Wilco performing. So great to have this show back!

Of course, trailers always stir up excitement and then tend to disappoint once the movie actually has to be watched (thanks Jumper), but that’s half the fun of them. That ray of hope from seeing an awesome preview that might lead to a fantastic film is a blast.

And I happened to see three such trailers this weekend, one of them I almost want to guarantee will be a hit. We’ll get to that one last.

Baby Mama

The first is Baby Mama, a new film from Tina Fey and as I never grow tired of saying, I love Tina Fey. I think she’s a clever writer, a funny actor and generally successful is most things she does. SNL, Mean Girls, 30 Rock…she hasn’t done a bad thing yet that I know about.

Now she’s starring in a comedy with Amy Poehler called Baby Mama, in which Fey has Poehler carry her child as a surrogate since she herself cannot conceive.

The preview is hilarious and the line “What if it was POOP!?!?” will keep me going for quite awhile.

It hits theaters on April 25th.

[youtube DU34zV9A3gU]

Chaos Theory

We get another comedy with Ryan Reynolds which has a release date on IMDB of October 2007…last year?

No clue what is up, Chaos Theory might suck really bad, but the trailer is kind of funny and I still think Reynolds is hilarious. The movie looks like a funnier version of Falling Down with Michael Douglas, where someone totally loses it and goes nuts.

[youtube e6VLHi_uMX0]

Smart People

This is the movie that looks really good to me. Smart People has Ellen Page, Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker and Thomas Haden Church. A pretty awesome cast. And an official Sundance Selection 2008.

Besides, after Juno, seeing Page in anything is worth it to me. t’s out on April 11th.

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